“Play it,” he ejaculated. And Juliette sat down at the piano near the window overlooking the magnificent gardens, and played softly the two hundred and forty-seventh’ _opus_ of Carpentaria. “It is lovely,” she said. “Yes,” he admitted. “It’s a classy little thing. Came to me just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “Your best ones always do,” Juliette smiled. “I’ll have that performed this very night,” he stated. CHAPTER IV--Mrs. Ilam Somewhat later on the same afternoon, in the drawing-room of the house opposite, Josephus Ilam was drinking tea with his mother. The aged Mrs. Ilam, who was very thin and not in the least tall--her son would have made a dozen of her--sat tremendously upright in her chair, while Josephus lolled his great bulk in angry attitudes on a sofa, near which the tea-table had been placed. Mrs. Ilam wore widow’s weeds, though it was many years since she had lost her husband, a man who had made a vast fortune out of soda-water--in the days when soda-water _was_ soda-water. She had a narrow, hard face, with intensely black eyes, and intensely white hair, and when she directed those eyes upon her son, it became instantly plain that her son was at once her idol and her slave. She lived solely for this man of fifty, who had scarcely ever left her side. For her this mass of fifteen stone four was still a young child, needing watchful care and constant advice. Certainly she spoilt him; but, just as certainly, he went in awe of her. The fact that by judicious investments in hotel and public-house property he had more than doubled the fortune which his father left, did not at all improve his standing with the antique dame; it only made him in her view a clever boy with financial leanings. Moreover, every penny of the Ilam fortune was legally hers during her lifetime. Even Ilam’s share in the City of Pleasure was hers. When Carpentaria had discovered him, he had had to decide whether or not he should put more than a million pounds into the enterprise, and it was his mother who decided, who listened to everything, and then briefly told him that he would be a fool to leave the thing alone. “Well,” she said, in her high quavering voice, as she passed him a cup of tea--the cup rattled on the saucer in her blue-veined parchment hand--“so you are not getting on with Carpentaria? I was afraid you wouldn’t.” “He won’t listen to reason about the advertisements,” said Ilam crossly, stirring his tea. “No?” “And he’s absolutely mad about his music. He’s spent ten hours in rehearsing these last two days. All the work, I’ve had to do myself.” “Indeed!” “And then, to crown his exploits, he takes me up in the balloon, mother--wastes a solid hour.” “In the balloon!” Ilam recounted the incident of the balloon. “And, after all, he lets that impudent journalist go free--absolutely free!” “Jos,” said his mother, “it’s a wonder you’re alive, my dear.” “It’s a pity Carpentaria’s alive,” rejoined Ilam.